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Archive for the ‘Attitude’ Category

Gentle on my Mind

August 25, 2023

Glen Campbell was a popular singer/songwriter in the 1960s and 1970s. He recorded a John Hartford song in the 60s about memories of a former love who was “gentle on my mind.”

We don’t often hear about being gentle. Maybe in our macho cultures we worry about being gentle as a form of weakness. Just as it takes inner strength to be humble, gentle is also a sign of strength.

We are strong enough to lift an infant or small child. Yet, we are gentle with them. Even when they frustrate us to no end. That is strength.

We are strong enough to dig in the soil to make a flower bed, yet we are gentle in picking a flower to present to a friend or lover.

We can be gentle when dealing with others, yet we have the strength to be helpful.

Today would be a great time to practice being gentle. Toward the things around you. Toward the people you meet. Toward even to yourself.

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I may have written before about how I loved to take woks with my grandson when he was a toddler. We weren’t trying for distance. He would stop and explore leaves and bugs and worms and little lizards. Everything was fresh and new. He was filled with child-like wonder of things.

Perhaps that was the picture Jesus had in mind when he suggested that we should become like little children. Take in new experiences with eyes open with wonder. Accept whatever people came our way with the same anticipation and joy.

The rare times I turn on TV news or scan news on the internet, I’m shocked by the realization of how adolescent and childish so many of these people are.

We need to look at ourselves. The daily Examen. Morning and evening reflect on the day. Where did we delight in someone or something with childlike wonder? Where and when were we acting childish like a 2-year-old?

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When To Quit and When Not To

August 7, 2023

The hardest decisions for the owners and managers of a successful athletic organization involves timing the retirement of its star athletes. The hardest decision for almost all premier athletes is knowing when time and age have caught them and they need to step down.

The same can be said for politicians and business leaders. I’ve observed church leaders in the same situation. They stay too long. Lose their edge. Begin to make mistakes. Think they are not only above the law, but that they are the law.

The opposite holds true in the spiritual life. We can retire too early. We may have had a spiritual experience of oneness with God. Then spend our lives trying to recapture that moment.

Or we become convinced of a certain “truth” early on and never grow from that or re-evaluate in light of further study and experience.

Every day in the spiritual life we can sit in the first hour of the morning and open ourselves to God asking what new experience or opportunity will be shown us that day. And opening ourselves to making the appropriate response. Living a life of loving God and loving other humans only ends at death. There is no retirement.

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See The Lord In Everyone

July 21, 2023

A phrase often heard commands, “Hate the sin; love the sinner.” I’ve mostly heard the phrase pointed at homosexual people. But it applies, of course, more broadly.

I thought, how can one separate the two?

Does repeating that mantra imply that we have no sin? Since I am not a sinner, or maybe just brush aside my few feeble sins, do I now have the ability to judge others’ sins?

One interesting lesson from reading books from different eras involves seeing how other people think of themselves. Literature from the 15^th, 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th Century European point of view often talked of hatred of self. They beat upon themselves about how great were their sins.

Contemporary American literature more often tells us how great we are and how we can be even better. Maybe that is supposed to help us “hate the sin, but love the sinner.”

And, yet, depression is almost pandemic among our people.

This writing came from an anonymous source, but its message resonates with me. I think we talk too much of other people’s sins and not enough of God’s grace.

For the same reason, we are required to hate other people’s sins, but love themselves. It is easy to say that, and to point [out] the distinction in words, but very difficult to do it. You cannot separate a person from his faults that perhaps hit you in the eye, as maybe yours do him. How then is it possible to hate the one, and yet to love the other? We have to “see the Lord” in all people.

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Calm and Courageous

July 6, 2023

I love reading about the early Jesus-followers in the New Testament and from the first three centuries of the Jesus movement. They didn’t know everything. They were trying to figure out the way. They experimented with ideas. Tried things.

When things went badly, watching their responses is instructive even for us today. They faced events calmly, with courage, and with an eye toward the common good.

Sometimes today I see self-proclaimed Christians whining at every small slight.

What if today we began trying more to emulate the early followers of Christ? What if we were open to discussion? What if we sought the truth without believing that we are the sole holders of it? What if we were infused with the fruit of the spirit exhibiting calmness, courage, trying to achieve the common good, with joy, peace, yes, and love?

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Do You Have A Growth or A Fixed Mindset?

July 5, 2023

“How did I get into this situation?”

I’ve pushed myself into many situations over my lifetime where I would ask myself that question. There I was, the guy with the whistle, about to signal for the kickoff of the boys big school state championship soccer contest. “What am I doing here?”

Many times I’ve pushed myself only to subsequently wonder what I’d done to myself.

I thought of that last week with my grandkids.

My grandson is just back from a tour of five European countries with 600 of his closest friends—well 600 other high school student musicians from Illinois. They toured and performed in England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. He’s already an experienced international traveler, but he put himself into an entirely new experience at age 15.

Meanwhile his 13-year-old sister went off for a week at a swim camp (she’s a competitive swimmer) in another state. She put herself out for a new experience.

Psychology research suggests two primary types of mindset: growth and fixed. A fixed mindset happens when you believe there are restrictions on what you can accomplish. A growth mindset looks at possibilities. We all experience both types of thinking, but spending more time in the growth mode creates changes in your brain that can increase your likelihood of success.

Studies suggest that those with more time in a growth mindset are better at goal-setting and decision-making. Additional research also appears to show that a growth mindset can build resilience that turns potentially frustrating moments into learning experiences.

It is often said that you are the sum of your six closest friends. You need to be around people who are more positive, encourage you to grow beyond what you think is possible, and provide specific positive feedback. So if you’re around too much negativity, it’s time to cut that loose.

Those with a growth mindset tend to be inspired by the success of others (rather than intimidated or defeated), and they focus on expanding their comfort zone.

Stepping outside the comfort zone to learn, teach (best way to learn!), serve boosts your confidence and your physical, mental, and emotional growth.

What’s holding you back?

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The Journey From Ego to Soul

June 28, 2023

If you’ve followed me long, you realize I’m an eclectic reader. I’m like a sponge plus a filter when it comes to absorbing information and wisdom wherever I can. Steven Pressfield writes fiction, nonfiction, and screenplays. His The War of Art (a cute play on words from the classic Sun Tzu, The Art of War) talks about The Resistance that interferes with your creative process.

He writes a weekly newsletter. This morning he wrote about the memorial service for his old friend and mentor Norm Stahl. Norm’s son told the story of Norm and his cousin. The cousin called once and asked for $25,000 for an emergency (most likely a gambling debt). This was many years ago when that was really a lot of money. Norm had it, and he loaned it. The cousin never paid it back.

The entire family knew the situation. It was a constant source of tension at family gatherings. At one family holiday gathering the tension visited again. Norm got up and walked toward his cousin. He hugged him. It broke the tension. Everyone was released.

Pressfield writes, The change in Norm was he shifted from the ego to the soul. This is monumental. It’s the equivalent, if you ask me, of what the Buddha would call Enlightenment.

The ego holds grudges. The ego sees only its own self-interest. The ego hoards slights and grievances. The ego hates.

But the higher self sees soul-to-soul. It pierces the Little Picture and perceives what’s really important. It loves. It forgives.

Pressfield is spot on. That is why Jesus and the early Christian Desert Fathers (see John Climacus, for example) spent so much time on ego, pride, humility.

I sense that we (all of us) need to meditate and pray deeply about our own journey from ego to soul. Someone need a hug today?

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Taking Criticism

June 21, 2023

OK, I’ll admit it. I don’t take criticism well. It’s from a deep sense that I’ll never be good enough. (Thanks, Dad.)

Something you should know about delivering criticism. If you begin with something positive or almost positive and then say, “but”, everything ahead of “but” is forgotten.

I found this piece of advice from the Stoic Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (from The Daily Stoic newsletter).

If that criticism is correct and we are in error then the person criticizing us has done us a favor by correcting it. If they are wrong, what do we care? More likely, if we are doing our job right, we should already be well aware of the issue that people are raising and already be fixing it. We should have no sense of ourselves as perfect or above critique. Nor should we be so fragile and vulnerable as to not be able to bear being disliked or disagreed with.

What a mature approach. Something to learn from and practice. We can, if we but open our minds, learn from those who differ from us and those who offer criticism—even the unkind ones.

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Traveling

June 16, 2023

Traveling.

Yesterday was another travel day. Two-and-a-half days of software conferences. A delicious anniversary dinner Monday. More good food during the week. Four-hour flight Las Vegas to Chicago. But that means about seven hours of total travel and wait time hotel to home.

Both flights to and from were packed. People queued up orderly. Boarded. Got settled. I never heard a discourteous word. People helped anyone struggling to stow baggage. Perhaps we’ve recovered as a society from the unsettled nerves and frustrations of the Covid pandemic. Maybe that will rub off into other areas.

How good it is to travel and be emotionally drained by witnessing belligerent and obnoxious incidents.

Maybe it’s a discipline. Maybe it’s a lifestyle. Maybe it should just be who we are. Courteous, agreeable, helpful.

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Another Perspective on Perspective

June 9, 2023

Some people have a theory in their heads about the way life is supposed to be. Or the way society is supposed to be. Or an organization.

Theories lead to rules to enforce those theories. Rules lead to those who achieve power to force other people to live according to their theory.

There is a scene at the end of the movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation where the CEO comes to realization of the effects of his theory on people, “Some things look good on paper until you realize the effects on people. I now realize it’s the little people, like you, Clark, who really matter.”

The world over has political and religious leaders who have a theory of how things should be and are trying to force people into the mold. I guess that’s a human thing.

It’s when we change perspective and realize the effects upon individual people that we come closer to the Spirit of God. The mission Jesus proclaimed from the very beginning was to bring people into the Kingdom of Heaven. Not by force—that was the Roman way. But by love—that was Jesus way.

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